So I only rent EVs when I travel. I specifically seek out Teslas, as I love driving them (I have two), but any EV works for me.

Besides the Tesla business model being, essentially, a huge flex from previous leadership that Elon and team were happy to enable, there were always numerous problems with renting Teslas at scale:

1. The experience of using a Tesla is unlike any other car out there. No other car lacks an engine/HVDC start button, for example. This hurt Hertz in both directions: time-stressed business travelers (many of whom don't have EVs at home) get fed up with trying to get them out of the parking lot (where a surprisingly high number of accidents involving Teslas have occurred), and leisure travelers who _do_ have time struggle to operate the car during their trip.

2. Charging. Everything about charging frustrates renters. Finding superchargers. Waiting 20+ minutes to charge, regardless of what's in the vicinity. (Many superchargers, especially in small markets, are behind malls.) Dealing with non-Tesla networks. (You don't need an app and an account to gas up an ICE vehicle.) Charging at scale is much better than it was when Hertz doubled down on this in 2022 but just isn't there yet.

2b. Many Hertz centers (including airport-attached ones!) didn't have charging infrastructure of their own. This was extremely problematic when a time-stressed renter decides to one-way their car to some other center with this predicament. Those EVs are either taken out of rotation for the day, which is extremely suboptimal, or, worse, are rented out at whatever state of charge they have. I've been assigned cars with a 2% SoC before. This is no big deal for me if there's a charging center nearby, but a renter who is IDGAF about their car (many/most business travelers) will take that sucker out of the lot and be calling roadside in an hour because their car died. This would never happen with a n ICE (since most people know how gas gauges work).

3. Repairing Teslas at the speeds that rental car companies require isn't possible without extra staff and a Tesla Service Center nearby. Tesla is Apple-like in their parts inventory. IIRC, You need to be a Tesla-approved service center to order parts from them. Once you do get the parts, (1) of my list applies again. EVs from legacy OEMs don't have this problem, but you still need techs who are certified in handling HV and EV drivetrains to work on them. That costs money, and car rental companies operate on razor thin margins.

The saddest thing about all of this is that Tesla wrote a really cool adapter for their car key auth flow that enabled Hertz renters to add the car to the Tesla app during their rental. The card key wasn't required when this was done. This was ONLY added to Hertz vehicles. I don't think Tesla intends on extending this to the rest of the fleet.

I primarily rent with Avis (who, unlike Hertz, still has a reasonably sized EV fleet). Having to use the card key for everything is annoying, especially in cold weather climates.

Which brings me to my last point. Hertz is divesting ALL of their EVs, not just their Tesla ones. It used to be stupidly easy to rent an EV with Hertz. These days, you'll be lucky to rent an EV with them at even their largest centers.

That said, assuming this next administration at least tries to continue subsidizing national charging networks and EV production (unlikely, especially if their EV or bust by 2030 mandate is rolled back), I hope that Hertz and others revisit EVs at scale in the future.